


The Dagger's Edge

by Notsalony



Category: Ancient Heart, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Cross Over, F/F, F/M, Forbidden Love, Lore - Freeform, M/M, Multi, Other, Vampires, Werewolves, interbreeding, vampire/werewolf
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-20 12:03:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16136834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Notsalony/pseuds/Notsalony
Summary: Kalen knew where he wasn’t supposed to go, that Beacon Hills was off the table but when his house was destroyed, his home burned, and he and his brother were sent out into the night, where’s a vampire to go, except straight to the one place he knows no other vampires would ever look for him.





	The Dagger's Edge

**Author's Note:**

> This is all com 2’s idea I’m just running with it. Ancient Heart is my on creation and setting. You'll be seeing more of it over time.

Dry.  
  
His throat was dry.  He coughed and struggled to open his eyes, everything was dark and blurry for a moment before he realized the nebulous grey shapes coming towards him was ash falling on his face.  He went to wipe his face and realized he couldn’t move his arm. Wha… He frowned turning to his right and noticing the ruble pinning him to the ground.  He tried to shake it off and couldn’t.  That wasn’t a good sign.  
  
He licked his lips and they felt rough from lack of moisture.  
  
Dry.  
  
Panic set in.  How long had he been laying here like this that he hadn’t fed the thirst.  It was clawing at his throat now that he realized what was wrong.  He was weakening because he hadn’t had blood in too long.  
  
“Filthy beast.” He heard from somewhere to his left as he heard the ring of silver through the air as it came down to several skull form body.  He watched the head of his uncle roll towards him before the flesh unraveled and burned away, his eyes last to go as they showed fear and sorrow before just the skull sat there looking at him.  Shit.  
  
He saw movement and his eyes darted to a black boot as it kicked his uncle’s skull at him, his uncle’s fangs slicing his forehead.  
  
“Someone you knew?” A voice chuckled.  
  
“y.. you..” He panted.  
  
“Oh look, it’s trying to talk.” The snide voice snickered.  
  
“you really shou..”  
  
“What’s that leach?”  
  
“you really shouldn’t have done that.” He smirked before dark eyes turned blood red.  The blood on his forehead began to flow more and more, but instead of dripping down it began to run around his crown and form runes that glowed black as he growled, his fangs springing from his jaws as he roared, thrashing and filling the air with dust from the pulverized rubble before he was standing in the midst of the chaos looking to see if anyone else was still alive.  No one but him down here.  They’d saved him for last.  He…  
  
“YOU FUCKING MONSTER” He felt something hit him but he didn’t move, instead the impact reversed and what he’d thought was some sort of metal bat exploded, shooing shrapnel back at the person who’d hit him, throwing his attacker across the room.  
  
“Shit… how the fuck did he do that?” One of the others came running to the aid of the attacker who he’d felled.  
  
“What is he?”  
  
“ _He_ is pissed off.” Kalen straightened his clothes and walked over towards where they were cowering.  “You should have started with me.” He put his hand on a reinforced piece of cement that exploded as he laid his hand on it causing chunks of stone and metal to fly out and bounce off of him to hit his prey.  
  
“fuck.”  
  
“how…”  
  
“Something to ask while you wait in line in hell.” He grabbed one by the throat, causing his head and neck to explode violently before he sank his fangs into the artery of the one who was only there to comfort the one he’d just killed.  He drank his fill before leaving the man to lay there, bleeding out from the violent tear at his throat.  He panted, the dark light from the runes gone now as his blood had stopped flowing and healed as he drank.  
  
He needed to get out of here.  He had powers, but only so long as his blood was flowing out of him.  He’d healed and that power was gone for now.  He surveyed the damage and made his way through to what he hoped would be the armory.  He stopped short when he heard voices he didn’t know.  He knew everyone who lived here and knew their voices.  So there were more than just those two, who’d apparently been on clean up duty while his house was raided by these other fuckers.  He looked around and noticed a sliver of silver.  Biting his lip he picked up the metal that burned his fingers as he cut a rune on his hand that wouldn’t heal instantly from the silver, and let his blood pour out.  
  
The dark light began to flow inside his blood, the red turning into a crimson ebony flame inside the liquid as it created a ring of runes around his wrist.  He felt his eyes go crimson again as his vision sharpened.  He had to be smart about this.  If he used his gift too long he’d run out of blood, if he fed too soon he’d lose his gift for a little while.  He studied the sounds, humans, no supernaturals amongst them.  And clearly they weren’t employing psychics.  So it wasn’t the consortium or the actual hunters.  They’d both have employed psychics to fuck with any vampire powers, standard practice.  Plus his family had lived within the accords of fang and claw.  He also knew that there was no way in hell these were Agency or Organization people.  The Agency would have used magic, and the Organization would have had artifacts.  These were straight humans with just silver weapons.  He hadn’t tasted anything but human in the one he’d fed.  
  
Purists.  They screened for anything else and they had made sure it was only human that came here.  That was a stupid move.  He looked into the next room, glancing for a split second and counting fourteen going through their weapons.  Well they could have their _pure_ blood.  It wouldn’t count for shit in a minute.  He slipped back, not wanting to get caught in the cross fire.  
  
“Did you disable the thing?” Someone asked.  
  
“You were serious about that?”  Shit.  
  
“YES!  We shou…” Silence before wet thuds filled the air with the smell of wet meat.  Kalen smirked.  Only those in the house knew not to take one weapon off the wall, because the second you did it started a countdown that would bring acid etched witch wires up through the floors and walls and slice everyone in the room to chunks of meat.  He slipped past the room noting the heaps of so much meat before he slipped past and towards the stairs.  He poured more dark light into the runes and could hear that the humans were down in the vaults.  No one was upstairs.  He ran upstairs and slipped into his room, grabbing his go bag, and turning to find his brother sitting there, rocking back and forth and completely shut down mentally.  His eyes black pools as his power had taken him too far.  Shit.  He quickly grabbed his brother and took him to his room to grab his go back too.  He kept an eye on the hall and walked out to move a painting that was barely intact before touching a panel of wood behind it.  A panel moved and displayed a digital touch screen.  
  
“Kalen 515772193.”  
  
“Confirmed.”  
  
“Marcoff.” Kalen stated.  
  
“Confirmed, two minute silent running activated.” Kalen grabbed his brother and hoisted the larger man over his shoulder and took their bags in the other and carried him out of the hall and down to a hidden exit.  He wasn’t going to like this later, he could tell by the tacky feel of his own blood that he was burning low.  He carried his brother out to the woods and sat him down with their bags.  
  
“Kaeden!” He shouted but nothing as his brother rocked back and forth.  Shit.  {Kaeden, listen to my voice Kaeden.  You have to listen to me.  You have to hear me.  Kaeden, come back to me.  Come back…} He kept thinking at his brother focusing on making his inner voice loud enough to drown out everyone else’s thoughts before his brother started to come out of it.  Frowning at him as Kalen collapsed.  
  
“You.. shit.” He scrubbed at his brother’s runes the light dying in them as he lay there panting, drained from going on power for too long.  He gestured behind them and Kaeden noticed the guy coming at them with a silver dagger.  
  
“Die you!”  
  
“I…” Kaeden turned as Kalen tugged his wrist.  “What?”  
  
“down…” He mouthed and Kaeden’s eyes went wide as he crouched low.  
  
“Die like the filth you…” A large chunk of the house came flying by, crushing the man and killing him.  
  
“You set off the bomb?”  
  
“too many…”  
  
“Shit.” Kaeden ran over and tore off one of the man’s arms and put it to his brother’s lips letting him drink slowly, his fangs sinking into the wrist to drink till he had his fill, his carved rune healing and his body calming down from using his magic.  
  
“thanks.” Kalen threw the dead arm into the bushes.  
  
“They’re all dead.” He looked at his brother who was holding himself as he gazed into the fire that seemed to be raging even harder now.  
  
“You okay?”  
  
“I heard voices…. So I reached out with my mind…” He turned enough to glance at Kalen.  “I was in their minds… all their minds… as they died.” Kaeden turned back around.  “I was in Uncle Cole’s mind when they cut his head off… and I saw you as his mind burned away.”  
  
“Kaeden.”  
  
“I saw the people you killed….”  
  
“Kaeden!  Listen to my voice.” Kalen knew his brother’s psychic gift was dangerous, not just because of what he could learn, but because if he let himself go, let himself get lost in the crowd of minds around him, he could lose himself.  He’d been so shocked by their family’s death that he’d lost himself in his powers.  Kalen had learned long ago that he needed to shout his name, sometimes in his mind, and use his voice as a way to walk him back to himself.  He watched his brother with wary eyes, worried that he might still be too deep in with this much death to see clearly.  
  
“I’m here.” Kaeden said after a long time.  
  
“We survived.”  
  
“They were purifiers.”  
  
“I know.” Kalen came up and put a hand on his brother’s shoulder.  “We need to contact someone.”  
  
“Who?  Who do we trust?”  
  
“The nearest Red Court spokesman is three days north.”  
  
“We could take this to Jacob’s Run.” Kaeden looked at his brother.  
  
“Jacob’s Run is weeks away…” Kalen shook his head.  “We need some where safe.”  
  
“Where’s safe when purifiers can slaughter mom.” Kaeden sat down, shaking as his mind filled with what it was like to be inside her as she died.  Kalen bit his lip.  He needed help, supernatural help.  The two biggest hubs were too far away, and they needed some where tonight.  Especially somewhere with witches.  Kaeden kept echoes of the people he was in sometimes.  With everyone but Kalen he’d been inside dead now… there was a chance their souls could be lingering in his psyche.  If that was the case he’d be a danger to himself and others before too long.  It had happened before and he was worried that it might happen again.  
  
“there is a place.” Kalen mumbled.  
  
“Where?” Kaeden looked up at him.  
  
“Beacon Hills.”  
  
“no.”  
  
“Kaeden…”  
  
“No.” He looked up.  
  
“Why not?”  
  
“That’s werewolf territory.”  
  
“We’re …”  
  
“We’re half mom.” Kaeden shook his head.  
  
“Sure, we’re half vampire.  But you and I both know we’re half werewolf thanks to dad.”  
  
“Yes, and without a house or a pack we’re omegas.” He shook his head.  
  
“So?”  
  
“So the Hales wouldn’t tolerate vampires in their lands, and especially not omegas.” He shook his head.  
  
“The Hales aren’t in control of Beacon Hills anymore.” Kalen was watching the woods now, worried that someone might have escaped, the longer the fire raised the more paranoid he got that someone might notice and decide to come look, or someone might have gotten out.  “And we need to get moving.”  
  
“What do you mean the Hales don’t control it anymore?” Kaeden frowned.  
  
“The Hale pack were decimated ten years ago.”  
  
“oh.” Kaeden looked down, his shoulders slumped.  “Who controls it now?”  
  
“I think they’re calling themselves the McCall pack.”  
  
“McCall… you mean like Agent Dawkins’ partner?” Kaeden looked at his brother.  
  
“I think so.” Kalen nodded.  There were some benefits of living as _out_ supernaturals now.  In the last few years there’d been chatter that terrorists were moving to use the supernaturals in attacks and no one believed them till a group of terrorists had summoned a bunch of black flame Djinn in New York.  And then against everything a little old lady who shouldn’t have even been there that day, walked out and started chanting.  She calmed the Djinn and sent them away and gave the authorities the ability to take down the terrorists.  She’d saved the day and she’d made being a witch a public issue.  It’s why everyone would always remember July 14 th, 2014, as the day the secrecy fell.  And then Cian, first of the vampires, stepped up with the Four and made supernaturals public knowledge.  
  
It was after that time that Agent Tommy Dawkins had come out as a werewolf, a prominent FBI agent with an impressive record, who was married to a male witch.  His work partner was Raphael McCall.  So Kaeden had cause to know the name, and know that if there were any supernaturals connected to Agent McCall they were probably as upstanding as Agent Dawkins had been.  Since people still toted him as proof that werewolves could be trusted in public service, a shining example to make people think they weren’t all boogy men waiting in the dark to kill them.  
  
Everyone had always known that there was something odd that lurked in the dark, now they knew that werewolves, vampires, witches, fairies, and a whole host of beings existed.  The President had even passed a supernatural registration act.  While you needed to register that you were supernatural you didn’t have to tell anyone what type you were.  Because too much lore existed on how to kill this or that type of supernatural and President Grey had been sensitive to that, he even had a magical adviser on his cabinet.  Vampires had had to fight for legal status in the intervening years, but they were not regular citizens just like everyone else.  And the government had been ecstatic about it.  How often do you find a group of people who don’t die and don’t often change political parties, who also have to pay taxes on vast centuries spanning fortunes?  
  
Kalen was old enough to remember when politicians wore white wigs and decided if people were property or not.  Now white men in suits showed up and told his mother that she had to account for money she hadn’t paid the government since the IRS was formed.  Same old story, if you had the money, they were always more ready to forgive anything, so what if you needed to drink human blood, you have cash.  
  
An errant thought ran across Kalen’s mind to call the hot line for supernatural involved crimes but he shook it off.  They knew the law.  Not the unstable ever changing mess that humans tried to follow, but the actual law, the laws set down by the Red Court, the ruling body for born vampires like Kalen and his brother.  Each race had their own ruling body, and part of the registration act had been to make sure that they took their problems to their ruling bodies.  Because that kept supernatural crime off the news and helped keep people accepting of them.  So he could call the hotline and get cops here… and ruin things for other vampires, or he could survive to a way station and hope that he could get help from the local vampires to figure out who sent purifiers to his door.  
  
“They were sent.” Kaeden said as Kalen helped him stand.  
  
“I know.”  
  
“How…?”  
  
“They knew they were facing vampires.  They brought blessed silver and didn’t bother with movie tropes that wouldn’t have worked.  They knew what they were walking into and how to kill us.  Mama never told anyone in public we were vampires.  The government only knows because of our tax bracket.  And if one of them slipped up they’d know that they’d spend the rest of their lives in a prison.”  
  
“Prison?” Kaeden seemed even more out of it.  
  
“The law under the registration act.  We tell them we’re supernatural, and if something they do leads directly to the death of one of us, they’re subject to prison time and handed over to our leaders for justice.” Kalen smirked.  “I can’t wait to see who’s getting handed over to the Red Court over this.”  
  
“they’ll want them dead…”  
  
“Yep.” Kalen helped walk his brother through the woods, too busy focusing on him to hear the heart beat or the weapon being cocked.  
  
“Monsters….” Kalen stopped in his tracks.  
  
“Don’t.” Kaeden looked at Kalen, already reading that he was thinking about killing the man who had a weapon that burned to look at it, so he’d had it blessed and anointed so that any shot from it would be a holy artifact and harmful to vampires.  
  
“He’s going to shoot us.”  
  
“Don’t.” Kaeden shook his head.  
  
“What do you plan to do?”  
  
“He’s going to die like you are!” The man aimed.  
  
“Do shut up.” Kalen suddenly was there holding the man against the tree behind him, the blessed weapon laying against his bare arm burning his flesh as it sizzled against the holy object.  “The adults are speaking.”  
  
“Monst…” He croaked out as Kalen squeezed his throat.  
  
“Don’t.” Kaeden put his hand on Kalen’s arm and he dropped the man to look at his brother.  
  
“Wha…”  
  
“Let me.” Kaeden crouched down in front of the stranger and looked him in the eyes.  
  
“I’m protected from vampire mind tricks…” He muttered.  
  
“Good.  Fight me.” Kaeden’s eyes were swallowed in blackness as he entered the man’s mind.  He was right, he’d been blessed and had things put into his mind to protect him, but this wasn’t ordinary vampire tricks like bespelling or will bending.  This was the magic of Kaeden’s power.  And so long as he was conscious and himself he could be a mental surgeon, taken memories out of someone’s head with such precision that they never noticed he’d been in their mind.  But he was still out of it from being in his mother when her head was cut off, and he was angry.  So he was more heavy handed than he normally would have been.  
  
The stranger’s eyes went blank before they rolled back, his mouth falling open, slack jawed and drooling as he finally collapsed on his side, and panted heavily.  
  
“What’d you do?”  
  
“I took his life.”  
  
“He’s still breathing.” Kalen listened to his heart beat.  
  
“He’ll live.  As a shell as he lives an echo of a life, but he’s gone up here.” He tapped his own head before he struggled to stay standing.  
  
“Kaeden you need to rest.  
  
“I need to sleep for the day.” Kaeden sighed.  “I also need to get these people out of my head.”  
  
“The Way Station is too far away.”  
  
“There’s a club.” Kaeden bit his lip.  
  
“What club?” Kalen always thought his brother too closed off or sealed away to really know anything of social life.  
  
“It’s on the way to Beacon Hills.”  
  
“So we’re going?”  
  
“We have no choice in the mater.  We need a place that’s safe and the McCall pack might be the best option we have.”  
  
“So where are we headed?”  
  
“Have you heard of Torment?” Kaeden’s voice was hesitant as he spoke.  
  


***

  
  
Torment, as it turned out, had once been a dive bar back in the 1950’s but after the owner was brutally mauled to death by werewolves, he came back as an angry spirit who possessed the building.  Kalen wasn’t pleased with this.  Vampires didn’t have the best relationship with other breeds of the undead.  Ghosts were worst of all because without magic or the ghost wanting them to, Vampires couldn’t see ghosts, couldn’t feed off ghosts, and worst of all, ghosts could possess Vampires, in most cases.  Kalen wasn’t beyond aggravated that this was where they were wasting time on going.  But they were half way to Torment when Kalen paused.  
  
“Wait… you never go anywhere.”  
  
“Your point?”  
  
“How do you know about this place?” He looked at his brother.  
  
“Dante told me about it.”  
  
“Dante…. Bull shit.  Dante wouldn’t have told you jack shit about where he snuck off to.  He’d never tell me.” Kalen crossed his arms.  “You stole it from his mind.”  
  
“Didn’t have to.” Kaeden patted his brother on the shoulder.  
  
“How did you…”  
  
“You don’t have to be a mind reader if you have a guy’s dick down your throat, they don’t exactly excel at keeping secrets.” Kaeden looked at his brother who’s eyes got wide.  
  
“you… and Dante…. Together…”  
  
“Is that really so hard to grasp?” Kaeden turned around.  
  
“It’s just… you’re you… and Dante is… was….” He wasn’t sure how to end that sentence.  
  
“Dante’s what?  Too good for me?”  
  
“I was going to say too hot… too wild… too… alive…” Kalen shrugged.  “but it doesn’t matter…” He mumbled as he started walking again.  
  
“And just why the fuck not.”  
  
“Because he’s dead now, are you happy!?” Kalen swore under his breath as he stormed off.  They didn’t speak for a long time before Kaeden finally broke the silence.  
  
“He’s not you know.”  
  
“Not what?”  
  
“Not dead.”  
  
“Kaeden, he was in the fire.”  
  
“I was in the minds of everyone who was in the house.  I know everyone who died tonight.  He wasn’t home.”  
  
“Then where the fuck was he?” Kalen slowed down.  
  
“I don’t know.  He was supposed to be home, but I didn’t see him.”  
  
“you don’t think…” Kalen’s voice was low.  
  
“Think what?”  
  
“you know…”  
  
“Not reading your mind.”  
  
“Don’t be thick.” Kalen glared.  “Do you think he did it?”  
  
“Do I think our cousin who can’t keep a secret to save his life, especially when I’m with him, told people how to kill his entire family including us?  Nope.”  
  
“But he wasn’t home.”  
  
“So?”  
  
“So, don’t you find that suspicious?”  
  
“Nope.”  
  
“And why not?” Kalen frowned heavily.  
  
“Because he sneaks off all the time and trust me.  It’s not to go off and make secret pacts to murder us all in our sleep.” Kaeden shook his head.  
  
“Then what’s he do?”  
  
“You seriously don’t know?”  
  
“He’s our envoy but no one’s ever explained what he does.”  
  
“He’s the House Slut.” Kaeden turned around and looked at his brother.  “He’s job was to go to anyone Mother wanted a connection with and drop his pants or fall to his knees, or bend them over the nearest sturdy object, and fuck till neither could stand.  Didn’t you ever wonder why the Chastain family just suddenly agreed to let us take over the mines out here or why the Cartwright family were all of a sudden so open to doing business with us.”  
  
“I thought mama just made good deals…”  
  
“Sure she did.  Jacob Chastain has a thing for whips and riding crops.  And Micheal Cartwright likes to be spanked while wearing a short skirt.” Kaeden shrugged.  
  
“How do you…”  
  
“I was dating our Envoy.  The slut we sent out to fuck his way through the red tape.  He told me everything.  God he loves to brag about the time I get my fingers right on his prostate.  You’d swear it was foreplay for him, to brag about all the men and women he’s fucked.” Kaeden rolled his eyes as he started walking again.  
  
“that’s a little…”  
  
“Fucked up?  Yeah.” Kaeden shrugged.  “But I was okay with it.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Most of the time?” He sighed.  
  
“You’re worried about him?”  
  
“He won’t know to check in for hours.  Maybe not till he comes home and finds it like that.  And then he’s going to try my cell.”  
  
“Unless he’s behind it…”  
  
“Kalen.”  
  
“I’m just saying, family slut or not, it’s weird he’s supposed to be at home and then isn’t.”  
  
“He probably just snuck out.”  
  
“Uh huh.”  
  
“You need to stop being so critical of others.” Kaeden sighed.  
  
“I’m just looking at this objectively.  Someone who knows about us being vampires told the purifiers how to get in and how to kill us, and supplied them with blessed weapons and blessed silver… and it was freshly blessed, like tonight blessed.” Kalen held up his burned arm.  “You can tell when you’ve been burned by it enough in practice.  You get to where you can sense which is the most powerful and fresh blessing.”  
  
“Yeah.  They had a true believer charging their weapons tonight.” Kaeden nodded.  
  
“Which just means we either know who sent them or we have a pretty short list of who could have helped them.”  
  
“Dante isn’t on that list.”  
  
“If you say so.”  
  
“I do.  But I do think he might have went to meet who was behind it.”  
  
“What?” Kalen frowned.  
  
“Think about it.  As loyal as he is… he’d never have left if he knew something was coming, but someone calls and get him to leave on business fight before… that smacks of someone who wanted to keep him.” Kaeden shook his head.  
  
“I don’t like that…”  
  
“Neither do I.  But what else could they have…”  
  
“They were in the treasure vault.”  
  
“I vaguely remember…” Kaeden frowned.  
  
“But remember that Dante wasn’t there but…”  
  
“There were about forty of them on top of our whole family who was home… and then they started killing people.  I got lost…” He looked away, his face using some of his meal tonight to blush.  
  
“It’s okay.” Kalen patted him on the shoulder.  He knew what it was like to be overtaxed by your power and to be rendered useless in a fight.  He didn’t begrudge anyone their down time from the use of their power.  
  
“But why would they have went to the vault?” Kaeden frowned.  “Mom didn’t keep anything mortals would care about there.  It was just relics…”  
  
“What if it was a supernatural that wanted something out of the vault?”  
  
“If?” Kaeden frowned.  “I think you were right to think it was someone or _something_ we know.”  
  
“Right.” Kalen stopped.  “Someone who used mortals to fuck with us, and to try to take something out of the vault.”  
  
“But what could they have been looking for?”  
  
“Everything in there was important to our community.  Half of it didn’t work anymore.”  
  
“But they were still status symbols…” Kalen was mentally going over all the stuff he’d seen in the vault.  
  
“But worth killing over?”  
  
“Yeah the only thing I can think of worth killing over is that piece of ruined fairy metal that mom kept in that display case in the back.”  
  
“Why would anyone kill over that?”  
  
“Now… no reason.  If the lore’s to be believed it was once a part of a fairy crown.”  
  
“Okay that I can see killing over.” Kaeden nodded.  “Fairy shit always has extra magic, and their jewelry is the most dangerous shit they create.  Next to other fairies.”  
  
“Exactly.  But no one’s killed over that thing in like six hundred years. It’s been bought and sold.”  
  
“Has to have been something else.  Who would want a twisted piece of broken fairy magic anyways.”  
  
“Short of an older fairy… not many I’d imagine.” He shrugged.  
  
“Do you know what it was supposed to do?”  
  
“No.  I mean, the thing wasn’t even the right color.”  
  
“Right color?”  
  
“Yeah, fairy jewelry is always in silver, so the wearing of it super charges their magic.  This was black… couldn’t place the metal but mom had an appraiser in like a hundred years ago and he said that it was real.  Kept talking about how lucky she was to have found it at that estate sale.”  
  
“Which estate?”  
  
“Jovin?”  
  
“That the one we got the nifty knives at?”  
  
“The ones with the engraved handles, yeah.”  
  
“Huh.  I didn’t think there was anything magical in that sale.”  
  
“Neither did I.” Kalen shrugged.  
  
“We pick through the rubble we’ll have to see what we can find…”  
  
“And get someone in who’s good with magic.”  
  
“Appraisals?”  
  
“Yeah.” Kalen started walking again.  
  
“Good call.” They walked only a few more miles till they came to the ramshackle run down old dive bar that had a half painted sign labeling it as the Torment.  “We’re here.”  
  
“Seriously?” Kalen gave it a look like he couldn’t see what his brother or his cousin could see in the place.  
  
“Not everything’s value can be seen straight off.”  
  
“I’d hope not.” Kalen frowned as they walked towards the bar only to run into a hanging noose with runes on it.  “Kaeden…”  
  
“Two vampires.” Kaeden spoke and the runes lit up.  
  
“What has two leaches out at this hour?” A voice seemed to come from no where and everywhere at once.  
  
“damn it.” Kalen sighed.  
  
“We’re here looking to get a drink and steady our nerves before heading on to Beacon Hills.” Kaeden spoke carefully.  White smoke seemed to billow in tight until there was a tall man made of snow white ash and smoke his eyes set in dark patches of smoke were charcoal grey, and his burned and torn clothing was ashen black and grey as it hung off his frame like they were too big for him.  
  
“You think you’re too good for me leach?” He was right in front of Kalen’s face.  
  
“I know nothing about you.”  
  
“EXACTLY.” He vanished again before reappearing in front of Kaeden.  “You know the words.  How?  I know the face of everyone who’s stepped foot on my land.”  
  
“Dante Farcastle is my cousin.”  
  
“And more than that I’d wager.  That boy has a mouth like a Hoover and likes to fuck my bar tenders in the back.  Sometimes I pay him to ride him during.” The guy smirked before vanishing and reappearing against the tree with the noose.  “Name’s Grady.” He bowed.  “And I welcome you to Torment.” He gestured and the gloom seemed to melt away like a curtain revealing that the place wasn’t as abandoned nor run down as it has seemed, in fact it seemed to be full of life and people moving about.  
  
“Neat spell.” Kalen nodded.  
  
“A little bit of psychic flare thrown in with work I had a local witch do.  Speak the words, and the noose lets me know you’re here so I can open the door for you.” He nodded.  
  
“Do you use _that_ word for every vampire that comes here?” Kalen frowned slightly.  
  
“Leach?  Nope, just the ones I really want to piss off.” He smirked.  “Truth is you feed off of the blood of the living, I used to be living.  These days only taste of reality I get is when people use the back rooms and let me ride them while they’re fucking their brains out.  Got one guy who only comes by to get paid to eat while I ride him.  Good gods that man is divine. “ Grady smiled.  “What brings you two out this late.”  
  
“Just stopping…”  
  
“On your way.  I heard you lie.”  
  
“It’s not a lie.”  
  
“Not all true either.” Grady arched a brow.  
  
“Someone exterminated our entire family.” Kalen finally blurted.  
  
“The Farcastles are gone…” He blinked at him.  
  
“Everyone but us and Dante.” Kaeden looked at Grady with an even look that spoke volumes of how much self control he had not to be raging right now.  Vampire tempers were the stuff of legends.  But Kaeden was keeping himself remarkably calm given the subject matter.  
  
“I haven’t seen Dante in three days.  I figured tonight was his night home…”  
  
“Someone called him away.”  
  
“That’s lucky.”  
  
“Maybe.” Kalen gave him a look.  
  
“You can’t seriously think Dante Farcastle had a hand in the death of his own family can you?”  
  
“Wouldn’t be the first time a whole family was killed from with in.”  
  
“True.” Grady nodded, flickering in and out of existence.  “But that boy loves his family, there isn’t anything on this earth or any other that would make him change his mind on that front.  So I’m betting he didn’t have a hand in it.”  
  
“We just want to find him just the same.”  
  
“Dealer’s choice I suppose.” Grady held up his spectral hands.  “But what makes you think of going to Beacon Hills?  Isn’t that no fangs land?”  
  
“We heard a new pack was in control.” Kalen stepped up.  
  
“New pack?” Grady blinked.  “I know someone who might know something about that.  Come on in.” He drifted towards the interior of the bar had been done up as a club setting at some point, or at least someone tried to.  The inside in better shape than the exterior, but it still showed its age and disrepair.  “Welcome to my home.”  
  
“I… love what you’ve done with the place?” Kalen looked around with a wary eye, half afraid of more debris falling on him yet again tonight.  
  
“Sit, rest, I’ll have some blood brought out.”  
  
“Do you have any soylent red?” Kaeden asked as he sat down.  
  
“Not much call for it… but I’m sure we’ve got someone on tap…”  
  
“We’ll take whatever you have to offer, we’re not picky.” Kalen smiled.  
  
“Right…” Grady floated off, vanishing at one point.  
  
“You know it’d dangerous to just drink random people…” Kaeden frowned.  
  
“We need blood, and we’ve drank down complete random strangers already tonight.  If we get sick it’s a few days to burn it off, and we can always hit up a blood bank.” Kalen shrugged.  
  
“And if we have to tell anyone about _this_?”  
  
“Then we’ll be well fed and they’ll understand.”  
  
“And if we stand in front of the Four or Cian?”  
  
“I don’t intend to go all the way to Jacob’s Run if I don’t have to.” Kalen looked at his hands.  
  
“But you said…”  
  
“If we could do it tonight, sure.  I’d show up first thing in the evening and knock on his door myself.  But the problem is.  We don’t know who did it, why they did it, what they were after, where our cousin is, and we have only the stuff I had packed in my go bag and you had packed in yours to survive on.”  
  
“yeah…” Kaeden sighed.  
  
“We can’t exactly go back and get anything for a couple days.  And certainly not with out someone who can deal with a large number of angry dead people.”  
  
“You think they’ll all be troubled spirits?”  
  
“Yes.  Yes I do.” He sighed.  
  
“Drink up.” A dark skinned waiter who’s skin seemed to go from black to a metallic magenta handed them warm glasses of blood.  
  
“human?” Kaeden sniffed the liquid.  
  
“Yep.” The waiter pointed to a handsome young man at the bar who had a bandage on his arm.  
  
“Thanks.” Kaeden waved.  
  
“Thank you.” Kalen tipped the waiter who nodded and walked away.  
  
“Bottoms up.” Kaeden sighed as he sipped the blood.  
  
“Any good?”  
  
“Healthy, bisexual, grew up religious, but well fed, doesn’t work in any meat related industries.” Kaeden shrugged sipping more.  
  
“Good.  There’s something that makes the blood taste off when they work around meat processing plants.”  
  
“It’s the sadness and fear in the animals at the last moment.  And the desperation that working there causes in humans.”  
  
“Cruelty free farms were a god send.”  
  
“Why do you think vampires started that movement.  The better fed the humans are the better their blood tastes.  We have an obligation to better our food stock…” Kaeden gave a toothy grin.  
  
“Please, _our_ food stock will never be within ten miles of _him_ and his kind.” Kalen rolled his eyes and sipped the blood, enjoying the healing that came with it.  
  
“Don’t be so sure.  You don’t know everywhere he’ll travel in his life.”  
  
“I know that soylent red factories are kept hidden enough that no one here is ever going to see the inside of one.”  
  
“I have.”  
  
“You have what?”  
  
“I’ve seen the inside of one.”  
  
“and…” Kalen asked after the pregnant pause of him looking at his brother.  
  
“And… they make it as humane as they can.  Big open farm areas underground with artificial grow lights to keep the plant life alive.  The _livestock_ work and live in the farm and then they willingly give themselves over for milking several times a day.  They’ve been selectively bred over all the years and generations in the farms to produce more blood in a day than most humans do now.  And it’s through that careful cross breeding that we’ve created such a stable stock.”  
  
“That sounded kind of clinical.”  
  
“I was in their minds.” Kaeden looked at his drink.  
  
“You going to share or am I going to have to drag everything out of you tonight?”  
  
“The humans, if you can call them that… are kept in a happy docile peaceful state, they don’t know that the outside world exists and they believe that we’re keeping them like this for their own good.”  
  
“Aren’t we?”  
  
“It’s ultimately for our collective good.”  
  
“Humans went and started inviting diseases that pass in the blood and destroy the body.  We had to do something.”  
  
“Creating a shadow population to farm for blood?”  
  
“Would you rather we have done it to the whole population.”  
  
“no.” Kaeden sighed.  
  
“My point is, it’s not entirely fair to them, but they’ll live long productive lives, have families, love, contentment, and never have to worry about anything going on out here.”  
  
“Unless the purifiers have their way.”  
  
“That’s why there’s a contingency plan.” Kalen sighed.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Should we all fall, the farms can survive for a hundred and forty four generations before it becomes a problem, and as such, an educational program will launch to get them ready to go out into the real world and give them whatever valuable or currency they can use to get whatever they need to survive, with full run of the facility as a means for survival.”  
  
“So they won’t just starve to death…?”  
  
“No.  The farm isn’t a cruelty.  It’s our means of make sure we didn’t have cull the entire human race to look for food that wasn’t tainted, and start over again.  They couldn’t take it this time.  And I’m pretty sure that Cian would have stopped us.” He sipped his drink.  
  
“I don’t know why I thought it was a bad place…”  
  
“It’s morally questionable.  But they’re as far removed from humanity now as we are.  They have so many new genes and factors in their biology.  I mean they all have a completely different blood type than even exists in the wild.  It’s how we know if one gets out.  They’d set off all sorts of alarms when blood type G with an rh factor of negative and positive.”  
  
“yeah…” Kaeden sighed, finishing his drink.  A waiter with tightly shaved hair and pale skin walked up and took their empty glasses, leaving fresh on the table, he was in tight black jeans and a black see through shirt with a high collar.  But the most remarkable thing was the black leather band with lace around his wrist.  They could both smell the magic on him as he walked away, but didn’t think anything of it.  
  
They should have.  
  
He dropped the dishes in the kitchen and walked out the back door and across the line of the property spells and took out a silver lighter covered in black runes.  
  
“Vargain Moestra.” He intoned before lighting a piece of black parchment on fire.  The flame turned silver as it burned.  
  
“Speak.” A voice spoke through the flame.  
  
“Two survived.  They’re at Torment.”  
  
“Are you sure.”  
  
“Kalen and Kaeden Farcastle are sitting in the bar drinking blood right now.”  
  
“Thank you for this.” The flame rose higher.  
  
“I think they said they were going to Beacon Hills.”  
  
“Let them.  The wolves there will slaughter them on sight…”  
  
“Sir…”  
  
“WHAT!?” The fire quaked.  
  
“The Hale pack no longer rules.  The McCall pack has a more… tolerant approach to all supernaturals.”  
  
“We will have operatives there… return before you are missed.”  
  
“Yes my lord.” He bowed to the flame as it vanished and the paper sat undamaged on the ground, he quickly folded it and put it back in his pocket and put the lighter in the other before turning back around and walking back into work.  The runes flashing in the leather of his bracelet, a pass for the staff to come and go as they pleased, and he walked back in without setting off a single alarm.  He looked through the window a the pair as they drank their blood.  He wondered if he should have poisoned it.  
  
“I’m glad we had a live one in tonight.” The black fae waiter sat on a bar stool waiting for his order to be filled.  
  
“Oh?” He turned to the fae.  
  
“Sure you know.  Vampires get sick drinking dead blood.”  
  
“Dead blood?” He blinked at his friend.  
  
“Yeah, they need live donors, I don’t know what it is, something in the magic of it all, but if the donor is dead it makes the blood toxic to them.” He shook his head.  
  
“Really…” The witch looked at the boy at the bar who’d donated for them.

**Author's Note:**

> To inquire or discuss commissions, please contact me on tumblr @ Notsalony.


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